Badlands
by Frigid Dawn
Summary: Darrem and The Death of Vash the Stampede (Spoons Verse 2)
1. Chapter 1

"Don't shoot him!" Vash shouted and climbed out the car, Darrem gripped the wheel tighter as Wolfwood leaned forward in an attempt to try to get Vash to get back into the speeding vehicle.

"You're nuts!" Wolfwood shouted.

"Damnit!" Darrem grumped as Vash balanced on the hood to continue his shouting match with Amelia.

"You can't shoot him!"

"Get out the freaking way!"

Darrem swerved a bit closer to Amelia's car, making her pull her gun back into her car as she moved to avoid being hit, while Vash failed his arms a bit to make sure he didn't fall off the hood.

"Don't you screw with me either!" She snarled, pointing the gun at him instead.

"Sorry, there's an idiot on my windshield." Darrem deadpanned at the same time Wolfwood said –

"We're not trying too!"

"Work with me Darrem." Wolfwood harshly whispered, nervously eying Amelia's narrowed gaze and Darrem wrinkled his nose. Frustrated Amelia sped up, trying to leave them behind, but Darrem was right behind her.

"Amelia –" Vash began again, but before he could continue Amelia cut him off –

"Watch out!"

Vash straightened and turned, looking at the side of the ship – one of the holes – before getting shot.

Darrem's eyes widened as everything seemed to slow down as Vash fell off the hood and hit the rocky earth.

 _Hard._

"D-Dad!" He cried as he slammed on the brakes to the car, turning it around before hitting the gas again to get to Vash, Amelia hot on his tail. He hardly had time to stop the car fully before Wolfwood was out, heading straight for the quicksand that his body had rolled in.

'No no no no no no' Darrem thought desperately, as he skidded to a halt at the edge the quicksand, Wolfwood pushing past him.

"Needlenogin!" Wolfwood yelled, quickly tying a rope around his waist before tossing it Darrem, who caught it limply, not really at the moment. Amelia snatched it from his hands and ran back to the car to tie it to the front bumper as Wolfwood jumped down into the pit, almost instantly getting dragged down waist deep.

"Hang on, Needlenogin!" He called through gritted teeth as he waded through the thick sand to try to get to his body, which was disappearing rapidly beneath it. He stuck his hand in to try to grab him, but only managed to come up with his sunglass.

Darrem's knees hit the sand and he felt sick.

A few hours had passed since then before Wolfwood took a final drag of his cigaret before flicking in the sand beneath his feet, Darrem hadn't moved from his beside the pit and the suns were beginning to set, they needed to get back to town.

Slowly, he walked over to where the kid was kneeling and put a firm hand on the back of his neck, the reaction was immediate – feathers sprouted from his left arm and pushed lightly against Wolfwood's chest, he heard Amelia gasp behind him and the click of her rifle as she pulled it from her holster.

"Darrem." He said softly so only Darrem could hear him and gave his neck a squeeze, the feathers relented a bit, but didn't disappear.

"He wouldn't want to beat yourself up, kid." He began, a pause - then he removed his hand.

"Plus, you've got a sister out there to save...Save her for him."

Darrem feathers shifted before disappearing from view and Wolfwood saw Amelia lower her gun out of the corner of her eye before his attention was drawn to Darrem. He let out a shaky breath and Wolfwood pulled out Vash's glasses and pushed them onto the Darrem's face, covering his eyes which were bloodshot from silently crying.

"You give shitty pep talks." Darrem croaked, wiping at his face and Wolfwood hit him between the shoulder blades with a growl.


	2. Chapter 2

The suns where setting and it was night by the time they got back to Macca City. The city was deadly quiet in the wake of Gasback's robbery, almost like he'd stolen everyone in the city. Though Darrem supposed that stealing a towns' Plant - especially one as large as Macca City - it was basically the same.

The dead silence of the night, as Darrem followed Wolfwood and Amelia, made him uneasy. He nearly jumped out of his skin when they rounded a street corner and ran into Milly and Meryl getting ready to leave for their company headquarters. Wolfwood lit up a cigarette before tugging at the back of Darrem's shirt, pulling him away as Meryl's 'wheres Vash?' reached his ears.

All for the better, he'd probably freak out again if he had to hear a play by play of events.

The short walk back towards the Hotel was continued to be quiet, but was broken up by the occasional panicked shouting and running, but the noise made Darrem relax a bit. As soon as Wolfwood opened the Hotel room door, Darrem made a beeline for the bed and throwing himself down on the mattress, clutching the pillow firmly before burying his face in it. He heard Wolfwood wonder over to the window and was asleep before he realized it.

Darrem was sleeping soundly when an obscenely loud crashing noise snapped him from it, half-asleep he flipped and clutched his pillow to his chest, eyes wide and heart pounding as he assessed the room around him. He almost instantly relaxed when his eyes landed on Wolfwood, who was staring at him right back, then tensed again when he noticed what Wolfwood had done to make such a loud bang.

"What the hell?" He blurted, but Wolfwood just moved back over to the window without a word, sitting down and flicking his ash into the street. Darrem glanced at the ashtray and the booze, 'he must have been up all night smoking' he thought, tiredly.

"You're Gasback's bodyguard, aren't you?" Amelia's voice rang out, causing Darrem to perk up.

"My contract expired I'm a free agent."

Darrem rolled out of bed to look out the window down at her, curious.

"So...you maybe want to be hired by me?" She asked, then her eyes roamed over to Darrem, "You're welcome to come along too, Feathers."

He blinked at the nickname before blushing, ah right, he flared up in front of her, hadn't he?

"You're really going to do it, huh?" Wolfwood said, not looking at either of them.

"Why, do you share Vash's principles?" Amelia countered, calmly. Wolfwood put out his cigarette but didn't move otherwise and Darrem glanced over to him.

"Give me every bit of cash you've got as an advance." He said finally, Amelia look surprised for a moment before reaching into her pocket and flinging a coin at them, which Darrem caught easily.

"Also." Wolfwood said as he finally stood up, "I want you to throw in breakfast, its against all my principles to skip breakfast."

"We wouldn't have to buy breakfast if you hadn't crushed the fridge, you psychopath." Darrem grumbled, crossing his arms as he followed Wolfwood as he hoisted the Punisher over his shoulder and walked out the door.

By the time they were out of the city and on their way to where Gasback and his goons were hiding out, the Suns were already high in the sky. Darrem was in the front seat with Amelia, head resting on the window as he watched the sand wiz by and rocks start to rise up from the ground.

"Here," Wolfwood spoke up suddenly from his spot in the back, tossing something into Darrem's lap. He jumped slightly, brought out of his thoughts as he glanced down to his lap, surprised. His heart gave a mournful lurch as he picked up the glasses delicately before flicking them open and putting them on as the canyon rose up in the windshield.

Darrem breathed out slowly as the approached the entrance, Wolfwood and Amelia next to him. They made a slow steady pace up rocky path about 50 yars before a loud explosion rocked the top of the canyon, breaking lose large boulders on over them.

He tensed, as Wolfwood swung his Punisher up and around, aiming the boulders and shooting them to much smaller, less deadly pieces with relative ease.

With a shout, Gasbacks two goons jumped into view and began shooting at them, but the falling debris made a pretty good shield as Wolfwood aimed his gun at them a drove them back behind the rock to avoid being turned peppered by bullets. Soon after though the lunched grenades from their cover - about seven Darrem figured.

He and Amelia pulled out their guns at roughly the same time, taking out two each, Wolfwood not far behind with his own colt before knocking away the once they'd missed harmlessly into the canyon sides and the three of them continued forward.

The goons - Flowerjacket and Bluescarf he decided they should be called - popped over the rock again, this time with rocket launchers and Darrem made a loud annoyed noise in the back of his throat.

"How many hidden weapons do this guys have?" He complained, as Wolfwood took point and shot up debris into the way of the rockets causing them to explode before they got to them.

Flowerjacket and Bluescarf ditched the launchers and grabbed their own guns, but seemly sick of it as he was, Wolfwood flipped the Punisher to another arm before launching a missile of his own, blowing their cover rock to pieces. They scrambled back up the path.

Suddenly Wolfwood jumped back, pushing him and Amelia behind him as turned fire followed not a second later.

"Duck to left and run towards where I shoot." Wolfwood said suddenly to Amelia, "Darrem, you're sticking with me."

"Yeah, I gotcha."

"1...2...3!" And together they followed Wolfwood down, using the Punisher as a shield as he fired a missile into the canyon side, it blew apart easily, causing dust to fly around them to shield them from view for a few seconds.

"Go!" Wolfwood shouted, drawing back up as Amelia darted forward through the gap. Wolfwood then turned to glance at Darrem, "Ok kid, you're up."

He nodded, drawing his pistol he leaned forward a bit, it was hard to see through the hail of bullets the turrets were throwing out, but he could make out the forms of Flowerjacket, Bluescarf, and their large buddy.

Darrem stuck out his tongue a bit, before pulling the hammer back on his pistol and aiming at Large Friend. It took three shots before he struck the control in the goons hands, blasting it to pieces. The turrets stopped almost instantly and Wolfwood gave him a proud thump on the back.

"Way to go, kid!" He crowed and the goons visibly paled.

The last obstacle in their path before reaching the top was a large barricade, but that was easily dispatched with Wolfwood's missiles, and they walked through the smoke to see Amelia with the Crooked Sherif's gun to her head. Darrem tensed and Gasback swung his giant gun hand towards them.

"Glad to see you back buddy."

Wolfwood slowly pulled his colt out of his pocket but Gasback noticed right off the bat. Wolfwood gritted his teeth in annoyance.

"Don't move." He drawled, confident. "This is it for you, I'm sorry."

"It's to bad, I hate to do this. Goodnight Pal." Darrem tensed and he saw Amelia close her eyes, turning her face to the side with a grimace.

A single gunshot sounded and Darrem opened one of his eyes, he didn't feel like he got shot. He glanced over at Wolfwood only to be met with a very familiar, and comforting sight.

His dad.

He had shot the Sheriffs hand before he could shoot Amelia.

"Shane! Your gun full of blanks or what?!"

"I shot him, I know I did!"

Wolfwood gaped at Vash some more before he waved across at Amelia, "Are you alright?" Before turning to look Wolfwood.

"But...you're doing kind of sloppy job here. I mean what was your plan if my sweet Amelia got hurt?"

"Can we start with how you're not dead?"

"Yeeah, I thought I was a goner too, but check this sucker out." He reached up into his jacket underneath the bullet hole - the sight which made Darrem queasy - and pulled out a hunk of smoked Thomas which had Shanes bullet in it.

"Hard smoked Thomas is one hell of a ration to keep on while your traveling and of course, the insurance girls happened to pass by..."

Darrem could just imagine how that went.

"Ugh, I almost died."

"You bastard." Wolfwood growled.

Darrem couldn't help the smirk that formed at his face at that as the two continued to argue.

"I'm taking this out of your ass. Later."

"What? Your not happy I'm alive?"

"Maybe I'll beat your ass right now."

"That doesn't sound like fun." Vash said as he reached over with his other hand and wiggled his fingers at Darrem, he started at them for a second before realizing he still had the glasses on. He took them off and handed them over to Vash, and in the process, Vash squeezed his hand tightly for a second.

"So." He began directing it at Gasback, "Think maybe its time we ended this whole thing? Cause if we continue on it'll be a real pain."

Gasback closed his eyes, only opening them again to stare at Vash, ignoring Amelia who had her gun pointed at his back.

"Alright Vash, I wanna settle up with you."

"What..right here?"

"Be quiet! I'll leave this place, right after I finally kill you."

Darrem gripped tightened on his gun at this, 'could we please stop trying to kill my dad' he thought desperately.

"Let's find out the verdict on that die you cast."

Vash and Gasback stared at each other, before sliding on his glasses slowly.

"Wolfwood, I don't want you to jump into this." He said softly.

Wolfwood walked backward with a sigh, "Always trying to steal the spotlight."

Vash raised his voice a bit, "You too Amelia, Darrem."

Darrem hesitated, feeling a wild panicky feeling raise up in his chest, before reluctantly stepping back towards where Wolfwood was. He watched Amelia do the same over by the Plant.

"This ain't a duel." Gasback spoke up again, we go when this hits the ground." He flicked a small silver coin in the air and they darted into motion, circling each other like predators.

12 bullets later and it was over. Darrem breathed a sigh of relief, watching Gasback out the corner of his eye as he made his way over to where Vash and Amelia were talking. Slowly at first before picking up the pace.

"Darre-oof!" Vash began, before being tackled promptly by the younger Plant. Darrem wrapped his arms tightly around his dad's neck, burying his face into the collar of his coat.

"Aww not in front of Amelia." Vash whined, even as he returned the hug, Amelia coughed and hid her smile behind her hand.


End file.
